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CHAPTER I

My mother and I take refuge with my grandfather Madame Darcourt's house My first books and my first terrors The park at Villers-Cotterets M. Deviolaine and his family The swarm of bees The old cloister.

We all went to live with my grandfather and grandmother, who were still alive. They enlarged their hearth for us, and took in my mother, my sister, and me.